Allen, of course, reunites with Ford after 27 years for the highly anticipated fourth installment of the swashbuckling saga, opening Thursday. After her spirited turn in 1981's Raiders of the Lost Ark, Allen returns as Marion Ravenwood, Jones' former verbal sparring partner and lady love. But her real life is based nearly 3,000 miles from Los Angeles, where much of Indiana Jones was shot.

At home in western Massachusetts, Allen, 56, knits and sells sweaters, scarves and hats in the Karen Allen-Fiber Arts store.

"I have the best of both worlds," she says. "Even when I was doing films, I'd set up a little design studio in my trailer. I've been knitting my whole life. This was my first love. When I was a child, my passionate thing and my first experience of ecstasy was standing at the threshold of a fabric or yarn store. Something about texture or design got my heart pounding."

Chances are, Allen's Marion gets Jones' heart pounding again in Crystal Skull. Sharing the screen with Allen again was "a pure pleasure," Ford says. "She's as vital and feisty as she was more than 20 years ago. She has the same independent toughness, focus, that Marion has in the first one."

Allen first saw the movie at a private screening with Shia LaBeouf (who plays her son and Indy's sidekick, Mutt) in Manhattan and says it met her expectations.

"I think it's wonderful. I really, really loved it. It was so funny, because at the end of it, Shia and I were like, 'Can we see it again?' " she says. "It's always difficult to know what people want it to live up to. It lived up to my hopes for it when I read the script. It way surpassed it. It was just the two of us, holding on to our seats. We were bowled over by it."

She was just as shocked when she first got a call from director Steven Spielberg about reprising the role of Marion. Allen was in her design studio in Great Barrington when the phone rang. She thought Spielberg was calling to order some sweaters to give out during the holidays. Instead, he ordered her to head south.

"I came into New York and met Steven at his place here and sat in his apartment and read the script. I didn't get to see it again for about six weeks. I read it once and had to leave, but it definitely had a major impression on me," Allen says.

"It was as though no time had passed. He was so happy that I was going to do the film. We felt so at ease with each other."

She felt equally comfortable around Ford, whom she praises for being in incredible shape at 65 and taking major punches.

He returns the favor.

"She's fun. She's easy. She's quick. The independence that is a characteristic of Marion is a characteristic of Karen. She just comes and does it," Ford says. "All of us are susceptible to her charm, but she doesn't come to charm. She comes to work. She does it with real professionalism and dispatch and a great sense of humor."

Allen describes Marion as "a very high-spirited human being. It has been some period of time since they've seen each other. She, too, is 20 years older."

Unlike many actresses, Allen has aged naturally and looks just like an older Marion would — had the fearless femme worn sunscreen and practiced yoga.

Allen calls her choice to avoid any fillers or injections "a personal decision. For whatever reason, I'm just not a person who'd ever volunteer to let someone put a scalpel against my skin. You fix one thing, and it settles in some way, and other parts of your face start to look weird. When I get to the point where people feel I look too old, I'll just do other things."

Her busy schedule promoting the movie included the star-studded premiere at the Cannes Film Festival. For Allen, that meant working with a stylist for the first time and meeting with design houses including Ralph Lauren, Hermès and Catherine Malandrino.

"It's a different world than the world I was in, in the '80s and '90s, when I was doing a lot of films and going to a lot of premieres. No one made a big deal out of it. I'd go into my closet and pull out something I put together and wear it on a talk show," she says. "When I presented an Academy Award, I went shopping with a friend of mine on Madison Avenue and found my dress."

After years of supporting turns in films (2001's In the Bedroom, 2000's The Perfect Storm) and TV (Law & Order), this divorced mom is ready to take on heftier roles — especially now that son Nicholas is in college.

"We'll see if this creates some opportunities for me to work again, which would excite me enormously," Allen says. "I've taken this hiatus, which I'm glad I did, because it allowed me to be a supportive, present parent in my son's life."

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Still as feisty as ever: Karen Allen is reprising her role of Marion Ravenwood from the first Indiana Jones movie in Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. It opens nationwide on Thursday.

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